Fairy Tales in Different Cultures: The Korean Cinderella

Last week we shared Kongi and Potgi by Oki S. Han. This week I am going to share The Korean Cinderella by Shirley Climo. It is very similar to Kongi and Potgi, but has a few differences. Since we explored a bit about Korea last week (both in the fairy tale post and our Around the World in 12 Dishes post), we will go right into the story.

Noah's Ark

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Hazel and I read her story Bible every night at bedtime. We read through it once skipping around a bit and then started at the beginning again. Hazel loved the story of Noah's Ark. I knew I had bought ages ago a Shrinky Dink Noah's Ark kit when it was on sale or clearance. I had put it away for the right time. I also discovered there are hundreds of books about Noah's Ark. Today we will share some of the traditional stories that follow along with the Bible. Hazel loves when we read a Noah's Ark book.

Most of these books we took out of the library, but some I also found at the used book store. The amazing thing is I didn't take out all of the Noah's Ark children's books at the library, because there were so many. Again these are the ones that tell the story the same as the Bible. I will share others another time.

My sister had given Hazel a wooden Noah's ark toy many years ago. Hazel loves the idea of it, however the top floor never stays in and the roof of the top never stays on correctly plus she is missing many of the animals. Hazel now plays with it usually more as a storage place, house or something but without all the pieces together. 

So after reading many of the books, I pulled out the Shrinky Dinks one Saturday. Hazel and I had fun coloring them in together. Don't you love the zebra colors? Hazel did them. A hint for coloring them is to put white paper underneath so you can see what you are coloring (unless you are coloring white of course).

Then we put them on a pan and watched them shrink.

Then once they cooled they turn harder and the kit came with stands for them.

The kit also came with a ark to put together as well as some other animals. Steve took on the job of putting the ark together for us.

Now Hazel has two Noah's ark toys. She really loved playing with this one. Here is the other side.

Stay tuned for some more Noah's Ark stories and crafts!!

Sharing Saturday 13-41

First an apology to all who have been following my Flamingo Fridays. My week got a bit hectic and I decided I needed a break and did not want to put out something that was not up to my quality, so I took the break. Also an apology for not getting to visit everyone's wonderful post shared last week. The ones I did visit are amazing and I am sure the others are as well. Thank you to everyone who share with us last week. We had quite a few new blogs sharing!! I hope all of you had time to be inspired by them all. This week we had a tie for most clicked.

From Living Montessori Now: Positive Use of Technology with Kids

and

From Peakle Pie: Halloween Party Bunting

Here are a few favorites from the ones I visited.

1) From A Beautiful Ruckus: Kids' Craft Fall Handprint Wreaths

2) From Doodle Buddies: Breast Cancer Ribbons Tutorial

3) From Happily Ever Mom: A Not So Scary Fairy Pumpkin House

4) From Preschool Powol Packets: Egg Carton Bats

5) From Wildflower Ramblings: What is Classical Education?


Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

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From Your Hostess:
This week we shared a Korean Cinderella, shared our mixed up stories (great for creativity and imagination growth) with Virtual Book Club for Kids, shared our exploration of Korea with Around the World in 12 Dishes, Reviewed and am giving away a copy of a Kids Yoga book that goes through the Australian Animals from A to Z, and shared our various ways of decorating pumpkins so far this year!

Our current giveaway ends Wednesday!! But more giveaways coming soon!!

Now for This Week's Party  
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Pumpkin Time! Decorated Pumpkins, Pumpkin Books, & More

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With Halloween only 15 days away, I thought I would share some of the ways we have been decorating pumpkins and more!! I guess I better get serious about sewing Hazel's costume. This year we planted some pumpkins in our garden. We saved seeds from last year's pumpkins and bought a pumpkin plant. We saved seeds from white pumpkins and sugar pumpkins. Apparently white pumpkins take over and don't grow white the next year. We ended up with two (and there is one more small one out there) skinny and kind of tall orange pumpkins. These took over the pumpkin area and also hindered the zucchini (we got our first zucchini of the year last week now that the pumpkin vine is dying off). 

When we were at Hazel's best friend's house for a playdate a few weeks ago, they had already decorated and had some great pumpkin ideas, so we borrowed a few of theirs with a few changes. They had found a kit to make two black lace pumpkins at Target. It came with pom pom spiders. We did not find the kit at our small Target, but found some black lace tights and stretchy spiders.

We used our homegrown pumpkins since they were so skinny. Total cost was $6. 

They also had a pumpkin they painted with blackboard paint and then her friend wanted to spray it with gold spray paint. The result was beautiful. We used gourds for the rest of our decorations since I have been told to watch my spending. Since we did not have blackboard paint, we used Hazel's black tempura paint. I had some gold glitter paint and did another coat with it. The one problem with the tempura was the other paint made it watery again, so there are some orange spots showing. We also did one black and then Hazel used her glitter nail polishes to decorate it. She used blue, pink, gold, silver and multicolored glitter nail polish on it.

I had painted two gourds with the gold glitter paint--an orange gourd and a white gourd. Then Hazel added some of her glitter nail polish to the top of the orange one.

Hazel was having so much fun painting with her nail polish that I bought her another white gourd to paint. (She also painted some acorns with it.) I thought she would use the glitter ones, but she decided to use the solid colors first.

Finally when I was at Target again, I saw a kit using a fake gourd and making it a spider. I knew we had some fake gourds that we used for turkeys last Thanksgiving and we painted one of those black. Then we used pipe cleaners to give it legs and glued on eyes. 

We also made some pumpkin bread last week. We first cut open two sugar pumpkins and enjoyed cleaning them out. Hazel had the best time playing with the goo and seeds. I believe she said, "Sometimes it is fun to get messy."

Then she liked the feel of the seeds and trying to get them offer her fingers.

After they were clean we baked them in the oven for an hour and a half at 350. Then I pureed the insides and put it in the refrigerator. We made pumpkin bread later in the week. We used the recipe here, but changed it to be gluten free. One loaf we ate and the other we brought to her school for Grandparents' Day.

Finally some of the pumpkin books we have been enjoying lately. Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman is among one of Hazel's all time favorites! Three of them go into how pumpkins grow. We also shared the Pumpkin Fairy story a few years ago. Are you getting ready for Halloween?

The abc's of Australian Animals: An Interactive Kids Yoga Book Review & Giveaway

Have you ever done yoga? I find it so relaxing. Plus there are so many benefits to it. According to Mayo Clinic, "Yoga is considered a mind-body type of complementary and alternative medicine." (Source) One of the biggest benefits is that yoga can reduce stress and anxiety and enhance moods. (Source) For more benefits, Yoga Journal has a great list of 38 ways yoga improves health. I want to pass this wonderful practice on to Hazel. I remember my mother taking yoga classes when I was young and she had a record from the class. My sisters and I would try to do the record by looking at the cover (each pose was pictured on the cover) and listening to the record. This instilled a wonderful practice in my life. When my life gets stressful, I tend to look for a yoga class to take or put a yoga dvd in to relax. Now I have a wonderful way to introduce Hazel to yoga in a fun and meaningful way. You may remember the wonderful book I reviewed in May, Luke's Beach Day by Giselle Shardlow. Well, Giselle has been at it again and has published The abc's of Australian Animals: An Interactive Kids Yoga Book and has been kind enough to send me a copy to review and offer me a copy to giveaway. Disclosure: I received the book free to review, but all opinions are my own.

First I should say this book is available in English as well as Spanish. The book goes through each letter describing an action of an animal found in Australia or Australian waters and gives a picture of a yoga pose. Hazel and I read the sentence on the animal and looked at the picture of the animal. Then we looked at the yoga pose and tried it. We still need to work on some things, but flexibility will come the more we practice.

Hazel's favorite was of course the letter h. She knows that it is the first letter in her name. She also thought the pose was pretty easy.

We really enjoyed doing the yoga together. 

She also wanted Ducky to try it with us,  so you will see him in a few of the pictures. Overall the book is very well written and illustrated. It is a wonderful way to bring a relaxing exercise into a child's life. I know we will be trying it some more.

Giselle Shardlow writes at Kid Yoga Stories.  She is a teacher, traveler and yogi as well as a mom and draws from these experiences to write her books.

I hope reading these yoga books and practicing the poses will help Hazel learn a bit about yoga and develop a love for it like I have. That way she will always have a healthy lifestyle or at least something to fall back to when life gets stressful.








Now it is your turn to try to win a copy of this book. Giselle is willing to ship worldwide!! All you have to do to enter is follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter and follow my giveaway rules except this one is open worldwide!

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